The Navy, It's not just a job

[Salvage Sailor]

The recruiter offered us training that we could use - skills for life I believe he called it. Here's the video proof, telling it like it was for a new seaman just out of bootcamp circa 1975 - messcranking, workparties, chipping paint, compartment cleaning......all the skills you needed for civilian life after your enlistment was up.

 

SNL - Navy, it's not just a job.....

 

The adventure came later when you finally earned your crows.

 

EDIT:  scroll down for link to SNL video parody

[Bob Hudson]

Thanks for finding that: I have not seen that in years. That originally ran on Saturday Night Live in the 1978.

 

I love that closing line.

 

[Salvage Sailor]

Replaced the old link, you may have to turn up the volume on this 1979 SNL commercial

 

The recruiter offered us training that we could use - skills for life I believe he called it. Here's the video proof, telling it like it was for a new seaman just out of bootcamp circa 1975 - messcranking, workparties, chipping paint, compartment cleaning......all the skills you needed for civilian life after your enlistment was up.

 

Datelined in Bayonne, New Jersey, this Saturday Night Live 1979 parody of the Navy’s commercial – “It’s not just a job. It’s an adventure.” — features sailors at work.

 

Out take photo below - Petty Officers (with their crows) lounging while the E-3 and below worked

 

[trenchbuff]

Now that is truth in advertising.

[joeclown]

wow $96.78 a week I got $78 a month when I joined in 62

[Salvage Sailor]

...it's an adventure!

 

The actual US Navy Recruitment commercials

 

 

[Kurt Barickman]

My recruiter was a Vietnam UDT guy and totally crazy; met him in a bar in my hometown soon after high school graduation in the summer of 1980. He convinced me to join with that motto with some adlib involved, "Kurt, its a fuc@3ng adventure" and then he laughed and bought me a bunch of beer.....needless to say, I wanted to get out of small ville southern Minnesota, so I enlisted....it was an adventure and he didn't ' lie at all.

 

 

Kurt

[Spike]

Kurt Barickman, do you remember the UDT guy's name?

[Kurt Barickman]

I think Mike Harlon?? Maybe...long time ago...or something like that?

 

Kurt

[Salvage Sailor]

more 'perpetual maintenance specialists' with the Fleet

 

If you were there, you know what I'm talking about...

 

FLEET TUG USS UTE (ATF-76) Vietnam/Cold War Era

CHIP & PAINT, SCRUB, SWAB

SEMPER FIELD DAY INSPECTUS

 

[Bluehawk]

> Was the perpetual fleet maintenance performed on some sort of routine organized (by zone?) schedule (as in time period?), or was it whatever whenever somebody in charge noticed a problem?

[Salvage Sailor]

Perpetual Fleet Maintenance Specialists or 'Real Sailoring' - haze grey and underway, because as our Chiefs told us with pride, Sailors belong on Ships and Ships belong at Sea.

 

For the shipboard complement (crew) especially on smaller vessels, it was an everyday task excepting Sunday unless you had duty or a watch.   (more on this later).  When you mustered at quarters every morning (unless you were on watch), all E-3 and below were assigned tasks during 'working hours'.  Quarters was when you got the word from 'the man'.  (Formation to you doggies).

 

Working hours were 0800 to 1630 or 0600 to 1430 if you were on tropical hours.  You would be supervised by an E-4 or an E-5 in your Department.

 

These tasks included chipping, painting, compartment cleaning, scrubbing brightwork (i.e. brass), sweeping, chipping, painting, hauling rubbish, unloading stores, loading stores, painting some more, loading ammo, hauling laundry, scrubbing the heads, maintaining the inventory, etc. etc. etc. oh, and chipping and painting...

 

Often you would hear the announcement,  'ALL E-3 AND BELOW NOT ACTUALLY ON WATCH REPORT TO THE FILL IN THE BLANK!!!' to do whatever the @#$%! had to be done as an 'all hands evolution' for the unfortunate Seaman/Fireman/Airman who didn't yet have a Crow.  Often times it included the rated E-4's & E-5's too.

 

In port, if you had duty, which was usually every third day, you pulled a 24 hour shift standing quarterdeck watch, engineering watch, duty driver, messenger, security, etc. etc. etc.  This also included fire drills, damage control parties, security drills (with weapons), and a myriad of other busy work tasks.

 

This was the easy part...

 

You could also be a mess crank slaving away in the galleys or stores for 90 days with no days off, working around the clock.  Sometimes a ship would run out of E-3 and below sailors and E-4's were shanghaied too.  I actually had to mess crank twice, once in the galleys & again as the Officers' steward in the Wardroom because we had received no replacements for almost a year after the Vietnam drawdown.

 

At Sea, you often were 'Port & Starboard' watchstanders meaning you pulled a 13 hour watchstanding shift from the time you left the pier until you reached the next port which could be weeks or even a month or two.  The only benefit of this duty was it excused you from 'regular working hours' duty cleaning compartments and heads.  But you were still fair game for other work parties when not actually on watch.

 

If you were on a 'regular' watchstanding schedule, you pulled watch four hours on, eight hours off but also had to work during the day from 0800 to 1630 or until your next watch.  There were exceptions and adjustments to this such as if you had the mid-watch in the wee hours, you got to sleep an extra hour before 'turning to' for work or your next watch.  There was also a 'dog watch' of two hours to adjust the watchstanding schedule so that you didn't have the same watches every day, but you still stood watch around the clock.

 

....and then you could still be assigned to other station tasks - lookout, underway replenishment (both stores by highline & fuel from the tankers), sea & anchor detail (many were hours long), general quarters, man overboard drills, etc. etc. etc.

 

On birdfarms it could be flight ops, on gators it could be landing evolutions, on destroyers it could be gunfire support or practice, on salvage ops it would be days hauling muddy anchors and steel cables until you were done and collapsed into a heap on deck.....unless you had the next watch

 

We could drop off to sleep in seconds, through typhoons & hurricanes, in loud engine rooms and machinery spaces, guns blasting aways, lying on a steel deck in our sweaty dungarees and boondockers.  But when you were called you were up and at 'em in a flash.

 

This is why young seagoing sailors were skinny, always tired and hard as steel, but the chicks loved the uniform when you were on liberty

 

Unless you were assigned to Shore Patrol...

 

[Bluehawk]

> Yikes  😅

[Salvage Sailor]

More...."Don't let the B*stards Grind you Down"

 

Illegitimus Non Corborundum

 

Operations Department - Westpac Deployment

Port & Starboard OS watchstander

(with my complements to Bearmon for posting this one)

 

Engineering Department - Cruiser

Trying to escape like a roadrunner when the man is looking for you

 

Deck Department - Destroyer Escort

That's why Sailors were called 'Swabbies'

[Salvage Sailor]

an aside.....

 

On my first ship I was a 'mess crank' for my 90 days, and then when it was decided to decommission her and we were receiving no replacement E-3 or below, I had to do it again!

 

The only good thing was my assignment as wardroom mess cook the second go around.....

 

Then when I went to my (second) next ship, they tried to make me a mess cook again......No @#$%^&* way was my answer to that!

 

RE:  Mess Cranking & 'Push Buttons' About not having enough E-3 and below sailors in the fleet after the 1975 Vietnam drawdown (end of the Draft Era)

From an old topic discussion between my fellow swabbie 67Rally & I

 

Posted May 26, 2012

67Rally said:

This is what we "affectionately" termed a push-button third class. Lest my sarcasm be lost...those of us who paid their dues by going to the fleet and earning our PO3 the "hard" way had a bit of animosity toward these guys.

 

Actually, now that I think about it...the pushbuttons were the guys who came the fleet as SAs like the rest of us (well, I was an SN) and were in a more technical rating, chose to extend their enlistment by two years to get PO3 with the idea they'd avoid mess-cranking. The funny thing was to watch these guy get assigned cranking duty (reporting to a MSSN) and swabbing decks, washing dishes etc. as there weren't enough E-3s and below aboard our ships. So, the pushbuttons tacked on two years to their enlistments for nothing. 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Posted May 26, 2012

Salvage Sailor said:

"Push-Buttons" were also 'affectionately' called PB's for Pu--y Breath.

 

The "push-buttons" added one (1) year to their enlistments after bootcamp (making it five years versus the standard 3 active/2 active reserve or 4 active/2 inactive reserve enlistments). The Nuke's added two (2) years from the beginning for signing up to the Nuclear rates program. The downside was if they flunked out they still had to serve the six years instead of four.

 

You're absolutely right about mess cranking. I had to crank twice. First in the galley, and then again in the wardroom since we ran out of E-3 & below because we were being decommissioned and no replacements were coming in. Later on my 3rd ship, they tried to send me, a PO3, to the galley because the push buttons refused to go since they had more "time in rate". I called BS and asked for request mast, laid out my case to the CO (who fortunately was a brown water sailor with a purple heart), and the push buttons went to the galley. Another fine mess the 1970's USN made by advancing too many recruits to PO3 while sailors like you and I earned our crows "the hard way".

[Salvage Sailor]

.....and recurring dreams of chipping and scraping paint.....Ships' Company! TURN TO !!!

 

Needle Gun and Wire Brush Photos: Haze Grey & DC Red

 

 

Red Lead (primer) being chipped away from the diamond back decking with a needle gun GGRRRRPRUUTGGG!!!!!!!

 

Zinc Chromate (yellow primer) - endless scraping, scraping, scraping, before priming.

 

Over the side - SERVRON 5 units at Alpha Docks

USS TAKELMA (ATF-113), USS SAFEGUARD (ARS-25), USS CONQUEST (MSO-488), USS BEAUFORT (ATS-2)

Left to Right:  Fleet Tug, Rescue Salvage, Ocean Minesweeper, Salvage Tug

 

My first ship after finishing a 'Mary Sue' paint job in Hong Kong

 

Photo: USS GRASP (ARS-24) tied up at HMS TAMAR, Hong Kong, Westpac with the China Fleet Club in the background

 

Photo: Mary Sue girls in a Sampan painting USS PLUCK (MSO-464) Hong Kong

[Bluehawk]

> I remembered some words to a Navy (I think) children's record song:

 

"Haul in the bow line, the bow line, haul in..."

 

Is that a thing sailors actually do? What is it? Is it part of "Perpetual Fleet Maintenance"?

[Salvage Sailor]

That's basic seamanship - Line Handling, one of the 'evolutions' we would do when mooring or docking

The Bow Line is at the 'pointy end'

 

The bow line is typically the last one you let go after 'singling up all lines' to cast off, and then hauling them aboard (dripping wet) and flakeing them out on deck, making them 'ship shape'.

 

To moor or dock, we would first heave a 'monkey fist' tied off to the bowline to a line handler on the pier or mooring buoy

 

Monkey Fist and Heaving line, with floatie, attached to a Hawser (noun - a thick rope or cable for mooring or towing a ship)

 

 

There ya go...

 

[Bluehawk]

> I'm darn glad I asked...I'd ask a lot more but you'd get sick of answering and belay me off the poop deck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ok, maybe just one more - who fashions those monkey fists?

[Salvage Sailor]

Bosun's' Mates, they take great pride in making a tight Monkey Fist

 

1 June 1984 Sailors man the rail in front of the 76 mm Mark 75 anti-aircraft gun on the patrol combatant missile hydrofoil Aquila.

Defense Visual Information photo DN-ST-90-01295 by JOCS Kirby Harrison

 

[Marshallj]

I remember those commercials. The SNL voice sounds like Dan Akroyd. You know any military member/veteran earned the right to make fun of the other branches. Danny is from Canada and as far as I can tell never served. 

[The Rooster]

Bill Murry, Harold Ramis,

not in the military but Stripes was funny anyway.

By the way, Sgt Hulka (Warren Oates) was in the USMC.

[Salvage Sailor]

From a newsletter response shared with me...

 

• IF YOU MISS THE NAVY….
• Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as you can, then run out into your yard and breakout the garden hose
• Make your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your cabinets or refrigerator.
• Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and then put them back together.
• Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot. When brewed, set aside for five or six hours before drinking
• Have the paperboy give you your haircuts

[Salvage Sailor]

The universal E-4 & below Skate Rate, specialist in evading mess cranking, work parties, extra duty, TAD/TDY assignments & Lifers

 

 

[River Rat 1]

On 8/28/2024 at 8:57 AM, Salvage Sailor said:

an aside.....

 

On my first ship I was a 'mess crank' for my 90 days, and then when it was decided to decommission her and we were receiving no replacement E-3 or below, I had to do it again!

 

The only good thing was my assignment as wardroom mess cook the second go around.....

 

Then when I went to my (second) next ship, they tried to make me a mess cook again......No @#$%^&* way was my answer to that!

 

RE:  Mess Cranking & 'Push Buttons' About not having enough E-3 and below sailors in the fleet after the 1975 Vietnam drawdown (end of the Draft Era)

From an old topic discussion between my fellow swabbie 67Rally & I

 

Posted May 26, 2012

67Rally said:

This is what we "affectionately" termed a push-button third class. Lest my sarcasm be lost...those of us who paid their dues by going to the fleet and earning our PO3 the "hard" way had a bit of animosity toward these guys.

 

Actually, now that I think about it...the pushbuttons were the guys who came the fleet as SAs like the rest of us (well, I was an SN) and were in a more technical rating, chose to extend their enlistment by two years to get PO3 with the idea they'd avoid mess-cranking. The funny thing was to watch these guy get assigned cranking duty (reporting to a MSSN) and swabbing decks, washing dishes etc. as there weren't enough E-3s and below aboard our ships. So, the pushbuttons tacked on two years to their enlistments for nothing. 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Posted May 26, 2012

Salvage Sailor said:

"Push-Buttons" were also 'affectionately' called PB's for Pu--y Breath.

 

The "push-buttons" added one (1) year to their enlistments after bootcamp (making it five years versus the standard 3 active/2 active reserve or 4 active/2 inactive reserve enlistments). The Nuke's added two (2) years from the beginning for signing up to the Nuclear rates program. The downside was if they flunked out they still had to serve the six years instead of four.

 

You're absolutely right about mess cranking. I had to crank twice. First in the galley, and then again in the wardroom since we ran out of E-3 & below because we were being decommissioned and no replacements were coming in. Later on my 3rd ship, they tried to send me, a PO3, to the galley because the push buttons refused to go since they had more "time in rate". I called BS and asked for request mast, laid out my case to the CO (who fortunately was a brown water sailor with a purple heart), and the push buttons went to the galley. Another fine mess the 1970's USN made by advancing too many recruits to PO3 while sailors like you and I earned our crows "the hard way".

I did my 90 days mess cranking on the USS Proteus AS-19 it was run by a Filipino senior chief it was when the Navy still allowed beards, he wanted me to shave off my beard I said no he got so mad he started yelling at me in Tagalog wonder what dirty words he was yelling at me. I wore a beard mask when I served the chow line. Then did compartment cleaner when the ship was in Diego Garcia the air conditioning went out the berthing compartment was a sauna tell you I slept on the flight deck until the air got fixed. And chipping paint I remember the yards on my second ship the USS Mauna Kea AE-22 got so tired of chipping paint I took over the spray-painting team the chief would give me the compartment numbers to get spray painted that day sometimes we would get done early only bad thing the chief in charge of the spray team was in First Div and I was from 2nd Div when we got done early the chief would give liberty cards to his 1 div and us from 2nd div would go back to chipping paint for the rest of the day. We sprayed Five 5 gal cans of paint a day that a lot of paint the respirators were no good I started to spit blood when I coughed after that went back to chipping paint. Best thing was getting 3rd class no more crap jobs. Hope those paint fumes don't come back with health issues later in life.